777 Conquers North Pole - 04/00
An American Airlines Boeing 777 flew over the North Pole on a flight from Chicago to Hong Kong Monday, the first time a commercial airline had flown a twin-engine aircraft over a polar route. Flight time from Chicago to Hong Kong was 15 hours, 13 minutes, which is about the same flying time for other commercial flights using four-engine aircraft. The aircraft returned from Hong Kong Wednesday via a North Pacific routing to Dallas/Fort Worth, setting a record of 13 hours, 27 minutes because the route had never been flown before by a commercial aircraft. The flight from Chicago headed north over Canada, crossed a remote portion of Siberia, continued southeast across Mongolia and joined a Chinese airway in a southwesterly direction to Hong Kong. Two Russian government officials were aboard the flight, which was under Russian air traffic control for about five hours. The flight also crossed Mongolian and Chinese airspace.
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